She Who Knows by Barbara Bras and Giveaway

Purchase your book here

I'm excited to be included in my first blog tour for Celebrate Lit!  When Barbra Bras' book came I grabbed some sweet tea and headed to the front porch swing with a Great Dane and three cats.  They all seem to know when it's reading time!

She Who Knows was a great summer read!  From the back:  Isolated on a Maui mountaintop, Cassandra has only her imagination to keep her company. Shut in due to her heart condition and shut out emotionally by her father, she meets the Menehune in a dream. Their "Gift" enables her to take the first step away from her loneliness. Along the way she finds an amazing woman in the grandmother she never knew and experiences true friendship with a new classmate. Eventually she learns that to love another she must open her heart, even if it means it may break.

Cassandra lived a lonely life.  Sheltered from the world and overprotected by her family her life is lonely.  She meets mythical creatures called the Menehune and they give her an amazing gift, she becomes able to read other people's thoughts.  Imagine if you had been granted this, would you use this gift?  Cassandra takes on the world around her in attempts to change her future.  In doing so she grows as a person and has to make decisions on when and when not to use the gift she has been presented with.  

Cassandra was a vibrant character.  It takes a really skilled writer to bring a person alive in a story. Barbra Bras did a remarkable job with this!  Her back up characters in the story were equally well thought out.  I really enjoyed her grandmother, Leora as well.  She had a zest for life and brought out the best in her granddaughter.  There were also many scenes that required kleenex so I would recommend having a box with you!

This book was fantastic!  It's a great read and I look forward to more books from Barbra Bras!  There is also a giveaway and who doesn't love that?!  

If you click here you will be directed to the giveaway!  Who doesn't love a chance to score a good book or an amazon card to get some good books?  

So pick up your copy today! Also, follow the tour!  I'm one pit stop but we have a great team of bloggers together.  I've listed them below!  Happy reading!  

July 21: Debbie’s Dusty Deliberation

July 22: A Reader’s Brain

July 23: Mary Hake

July 24: Chas Ray’s Book Nerd Corner

July 25: Eat, Read, Teach, Blog

July 26: Book Bites, Bee Stings, and Butterfly Kisses

July 27: A Greater Yes

July 27: Reading Is My SuperPower

July 28: A Bakers Perspective

July 29: Splashes of Joy

July 29: Artistic Nobody

July 30: Cassandra M’s Place

July 31: Bukwurmzzz

August 1: Simple Harvest Reads

August 2: Carpe Diem

August 3: Pause for Tales

About the Author

 Barbara Bras left her career to pursue her dream of serving God. She believed that her first step would be to share the amazing ways God had blessed her. As she wrote of her son’s miraculous adoption and the challenging years that followed, it led to the rediscovery of her entire life, including the history of her grandparents’ remarkable survival in Armenia and her search for purpose and love. Her memoir led to her first novel, which she hopes readers will find engaging and memorable.

Guest Post from Barbara Bras

An interviewer asked what inspired me to write and publish two books within a year. It’s a long story. Unlike many authors, I didn’t always write, nor did I yearn to write. In fact, the opposite was true for me; fear of judgement discouraged me from writing. Judgement from my mother, an English teacher and a strict perfectionist who demanded excellence in everything, especially writing.

In spite of the circumstances, my love of reading led to my first profession, teaching English at the high school level. Teaching laid the foundation for my career, which ultimately resulted in twenty-five plus years in various corporate environments as an Human Resources leader. Naturally, during my career I wrote a great deal, including proposals, papers, and communications of all kinds. But never anything creative, I never even journaled.

Almost two years ago, our Pastor handed out little pieces of paper during his sermon that said, “ENOUGH”. He questioned our inane desire to accumulate things when we already have the one thing that is needful. Just as Mary choose to worship at the feet of Jesus rather than be distracted by the world, so must we choose what is most important. (Luke 10:42) It struck a nerve.

Shortly thereafter, I made the decision to leave my position of ten years. Unsure of my next move, I focused my energy on a burning desire. Ever since the Lord provided a son for us through a miraculous adoption, I believed He wanted me to share it as an encouragement to others. I had tried to write the story many times without success. I signed up for retreat that promised, “Write your book in a weekend!”

The three-day retreat required nonstop writing, first in long hand, then on the pc. Amazingly, at the end of the third day I had not only finally written the story of the miraculous adoption, I had shared the incredible disappointment and heartache of the years that followed, all captured within the context of my life and the life of my ancestors. Wrapped in God’s Grace, a Life Rediscovered had materialized. I felt a great release and I thought that would be the end of my writing.

Over the next few months as I edited the book, I followed the system of editing for 45 minutes, and writing new material for 15. What emerged during those 15 minute segments became Cassandra’s story, or She Who Knows, a Tale of the Heart. The story unfolded in front of me, inspired by the woman who supervised my student teaching in Honolulu back in 1977.

Barbara Robinson was an inspiration to me both as a teacher and as a person. As we worked together that semester, she shared many stories and took me under her wing. She told me the story of how her grandmother, a musician, had come to islands and married her seafaring grandfather. She spent a great deal of her childhood isolated in the mountains on Maui, presumably to recover from an illness. When finally allowed to return to school years later, her years of isolation and her archaic English made for a lonely life. She also believed she that she had an usual gift, which she decided was better left unused.

So what began as an effort to share my story and encourage others has developed into a love of writing and a desire to serve the Lord through my new passion.

Soli Deo Gloria. To God Alone Be the Glory!